Protection
by boiled eggs
Summary: When Sarah Rogers finds out she is two months pregnant, she swears to herself to protect the baby. From the moment she knows, she prays; to every god she's ever known of, she prays for a strong, healthy child. She prays for ten fingers and ten toes, and all the parts in the right places, but most of all...most of all, she prays for an Alpha, and not an Omega.


When Sarah Rogers finds out she is two months pregnant, she swears to herself to protect the baby. She doesn't care if it's a boy, or a girl; this is her child. Hers. From the moment she knows, she prays; to every god she's ever known of, she prays for a strong, healthy child. She prays for ten fingers and ten toes, and all the parts in the right places, but most of all...most of all, she prays for an Alpha, and not an Omega.

-  
Five months later, Steve Rogers is born, small and quiet and early to boot. Sarah cries, but she has hope. Children don't usually show either persuasion until they get much, much older than the 4 hours Steve's been in her arms. He rests there, blinking slowly at the world, and Sarah remembers her promise to protect this little person, this Steve, and she feels a rush of protectiveness she's never felt before.

So this is what it's like to be a mother.

Steve is six years old and Sarah is losing hope but gaining love. Steve is so, so tiny; there are four years bigger than him and it makes her worry; worry for his future and his life. She prayed so hard for an alpha child; and she still does so everyday. She's gone through every god on her list, and maybe there isn't one who'll listen to her, and maybe there is, and so every time she lays eyes on her child, when he draws at their beaten table, or sleeps curled into a little ball, she prays. There is nothing major, just a little group of sentences shot out into the air.

She likes to think it helps, though.

Steve meets Bucky on his tenth birthday. Sarah had splurged and bought him an entire cake,all done up with candies and sweet icing; together they'd eaten nearly the entire thing. They'd gone out to walk it off, and Steve had begged "pleasemomplease i'm already ten now pleaase?" to go into a comic book shop alone, and against her better judgement, Sarah agreed. "15 minutes," she said, and a beaming Steve had happily agreed.

She had left for the bookshop down the street, and browsed for a little. She walked back to the shop exactly 15 minutes later, to find...no Steve. She gently swallowed her rising panic; 'it won't do to get upset, Sarah.' She shrugged her bag a little higher her purse, and stepped out of the shop, turning the corner. The owner had been helpful; he'd told her that he'd yes, he'd seen a little blonde boy, and no he wasn't alone. She walked on, tension in all the lines of her back and shoulders. She stopped short at a alleyway; a pair of boys were huddled there and seemed to be hitting something .

And there is her baby, suddenly pulled back and huddled away, while a boy in a scruffy plaid shirt with dark hair throws quite a few hard blows right back, enough to divert their attention and also to drive them away. The two scatter, and the boy in plaid offers Steve a hand, even though there is blood starting to seep from a nasty cut on the side of his mouth. She watches carefully as the boys eye each other, before Steve shouts "That was totally awesome!" and the boy grins wide. "My name's Bucky, kid. You ought to stay outta trouble, since you're so small and all." Steve frowns a little, and pokes the other boy in the arm, saying "You're a jerk, you know that?" The boy- Bucky, just laughs, slapping Steve on the back. "Takes one to know one. Me and you are gonna be be great friends, ya know that?" And Steve smiles right back, with a "Yeah" of his own.

Sarah has never been so grateful for Bucky; he takes care of Steve in ways that she just can't, and he protects him with a ferocity almost as vicious as hers. He eats them out of house and home, and is sometimes loud and snarky, but he also does the dishes and he brings her flowers, too.

-  
Steve is thirteen when he reaches puberty, and all the signs are there. Her son is an omega. After he goes to bed, she sits at the kitchen table and weeps. All her prayers, wasted.

Sarah has never told Steve what happened to his father, and thank goodness he has never asked. She wouldn't have been able to answer him- because she doesn't know. Sarah Rogers has never met the father of her child; obviously, their body parts had met, resulting in Steve, but the rest is unknown. She doesn't know his favorite food, his hobbies, or even the color of his eyes or his name. All she knows is that one day, on the way from school (she'd been in the 11th grade) she went into heat quite unexpectedly, and she'd been stopped; pulled into an alleyway and passed around like a doll between three boys and a girl. They'd given her what she 'needed', but they'd violated her in the worst way. One of them had even decided to knot her; pressed against her back for what seemed like hours, sour breath hot against her neck and scratchy hairs poking her like wires as he'd writhed and panted against her.

Eventually he'd let her go, sated and smug (she could hear it in his voice) and she'd stumbled back home, bruised and shamed and hurting from the inside to the outside. She'd felt so raw, after the high haze of her heat. She'd climbed into her bathtub (no one had been home yet) in her school uniform, once shiny and pressed and now caked with dirt and semen, and switched the water on. She'd sat under it, letting it blast her, and only then had she cried. The next day, after her uniform was washed and dried and so was her skin (she was still so dirty inside though) she'd resolved that it had never happened; that it was an awful nightmare or some sort of delusion...and she'd firmly ignored the traces of dirt on her clothes that the washer just couldn't get out.

Several people had remarked to her that she'd smelled funny (and she knew she smelled like him and it repulsed her) but she'd told them some like about mixing laundry at the laundromat and they had believed her.

That facade lasted for two months.

Sarah is losing it; her son is sixteen and he's fallen right into the role of the omega. He's demure and submissive around alphas (unless there's a bully, Steven Rogers hates bullies) and he's still so small. He's slightly unhealthy, but it's better than it was when he was a small child. He and Bucky go to the same high school, thank god, and she knows he keeps an eye out for Steve and it sets her heart at ease, if only for a while. But she can't help noticing it all the same; Alphas who stare at her son with hungry little eyes and impure thoughts. They set her teeth on edge, they make her fingers cut little half moons into her palms. No one will ever have her son without his permission; she will make sure of it.

And so she scrapes together the only money she's got saved, and goes to visit a man named .

-  
Sarah wants to weep for joy when Steve comes out into the waiting room of the hospital; tall and thickly muscled, and no longer sickly either. It doesn't matter if her son is still an omega (no matter what, they couldn't change that) he doesn't look the part. And for Sarah, that is enough.

Things have changed between Sarah and Steve. They aren't as close as they once were, and she's knows it's because of the serum. He'd shouted at her, once, for the first time in his life, after they'd come home from a day of shopping for new clothes to fit his larger frame. "Why wasn't I enough for you?! Why couldn't you just love me the way I was?" She'd wanted to explain everything to him; his conception...her fears. She'd kept silent instead, and from then on, things had been stilted between them.

He'd gotten accepted to MIT for art, full scholarship, while Bucky had gone to school in texas. She was full to bursting with pride for the both of them, and she and Steve had said a warm goodbye, regardless of what had been said before. Then he'd packed up his things (two friends of his, Clint and Natasha were going there too, and so he was taking a ride with them) and kissed her cheek one last time. Then he was out the door and gone, all his things with him. Sarah sat at her table, and wondered about the future.

She wasn't going to cry; she'd had her fill of tears.

Around christmas-time, Steve had called her, asking if he could bring a few friends home for the holidays. She'd immediately agreed; thinking of only one or two people. Perhaps Clint and Natasha, who she'd met later on and wasn't suspicious of. To her surprise, they'd had more than a full house that year. Steve had brought Clint and Natasha, yes, but he'd also brought Phil (who was apparently the third in their relationship) and Bruce, his study partner, Bruce's girlfriend, Darcy, her best friend Jane, Jane's boyfriend, Thor, and Thor's brother, Loki. And then there was Tony. The son of a genius, and apparently a genius himself. She'd hated him after their first introduction- he was an alpha and she saw the way he looked at Steve, and more importantly, the way Steve looked at him. But she'd kept her thoughts to herself, and smiled and laughed along with the others.

Bucky had come in, a surprise for Steve on christmas, and they'd all embraced. Then Steve had taken him around the room, introducing him to everyone, and he'd flirted with Clint and with Phil, backing away when Natasha growled at him, and talked cheesy pop songs with Darcy and by extension, Bruce, and failed spectacularly at trying to out-eat Thor. He and Tony seemed to be put off as they first met each other, and they growled and pushed into each other's spaces, but then they both glanced at Steve and seemed to be having some sort of mental conversation, before Bucky relaxed and stuck out a hand. They'd hit it off after that, and Sarah had been disappointed in the loss of her ally. But what had most surprised her was where Bucky ended up as the night wound down, with everyone strewn all over the place with their bellies too full of dinner and drink. He'd been pressed into a corner of the living room, talking quietly with Thor's brother, the silent and snarky Loki. He wasn't being loud or over-boisterous...but he had this look in his eyes, and she knew they'd be seeing a lot more of the boy.

-  
The next year,during christmas break again, Steve asks if he can bring a friend along, and Sarah agrees, hoping that it isn't what she thinks it is. But Steve is twenty now, and she doubts he'd only bring one friend if they weren't someone truly special.

Of course it's Tony Stark.

Sarah smiles at them cheerfully as they walk in, and her teeth feel icy and brittle. She welcomes them, and they all eat a nice dinner together, calmly talking and laughing. She can almost convince herself that nothing is out of the ordinary, and that Tony is a friend like Bucky is a friend. But there's that damned look again, and it makes her hold her fork and knife a little tighter as she eats.

Later, as they sit around the table drinking cocoa (or in Tony's case, coffee), Sarah brings up sleeping arrangements, telling Tony that she'll set up the couch for him. Steve cuts in, saying, "Uh, Mom.." and trails off, blushing to the roots of his hair. Sarah looks up, smiling a little tightly, and asks "Is there something you'd like to tell me, dear?" Tony takes up where he left off, and there are words about dating and sleeping together and all of a sudden, there is a smash. Steve and Tony stare at her, open mouthed, and she realizes that she's thrown her cup to the floor. "No.." she mutters. "Not in my house. Not ever in my house!" Steve looks confused. "But mom, why?' He asks, before his features darken. "Is this about-" She cuts him off with a sharp noise, and Steve looks at her, frustrated. "He's already told me about the serum, , if that's what you're after" Tony says, loudly. "You filthy-" she starts to mutter, before Steve cuts her off with a "Mom!" She looks at her son, betrayed- only to find the exact same expression echoed on his face. Steve rises slowly out of his chair (and really he's so much more graceful than he used to be) and walks out of the kitchen, blue eyes hard and flinty. In a few seconds, he returns with his and Tony's bags (and the expression on his face reminds her of when he was learning to walk, so full of determination) and he carries them both, and taps Tony on the shoulder, signalling. "We'll find someplace else to stay for Christmas, mom," he says, so gentle even when he's angry. Tony sneers at her,and spits out a nasty "Merry fucking Christmas, " as the door slams.

Sometime later, as she sweeps up the porcelain shards of her mug, and mops up the spilt cocoa, she wonders if she's done the right thing.

The spring of the next year, she gets a lacy envelope in the mail. It's a Bonding invitation, and her heart freezes for a minute before she opens it up and relaxes.

You are invited to a Bonding Ceremony between James Barnes and Loki Laufeyson on May the Eighth, at 1 o'Clock pm.

They're young, and they haven't known each other terribly long, but somehow, Sarah isn't surprised.

She checks off R.S.V.P and puts the envelope in the mailbox.

It's a beautiful bonding ceremony (the Odinson family has got plenty of money, and Thor is willing to share even if his parents aren't) and Bucky can't stop smiling. Loki is a little more reserved, but it's terribly obvious that he's very happy. Steve and Tony are there, of course, and even if she hates the idea of it, she can't deny that they look good together.

Steve hasn't seen her yet, but Bucky brought Loki over and introduced them, again. Tony's seen her though, and he taps Steve on the shoulder and whispers in his ear. She's worried for a moment that he's told Steve she was there, but Steve merely nods and goes off to talk to Natasha. Tony, on the other hand, makes a beeline straight towards her. She sees the question in his eyes before he even gets to her, and she nods, albeit reluctantly. They head out into the hallway, and Tony leans against the wall. They stand in silence for a minute, before Tony speaks. "I'm sorry about Christmas- and no do not interrupt me, do you know how hard it is to get me to apologize? But anyway. I shouldn't have spoken to you like that; I'll 'own up' to that one. But you have no right, no right at all to keep Steve from happiness just because you're afraid. And yes, I looked you up; it was easy to figure out. I know what happened that day, but I also know this: I want...to marry your son. It doesn't matter if it's today or tomorrow or hell, twenty years from now, but I want it to happen. And I'd like your blessing for it; not because I think I need it, but because Steve will." She wants to say no. She wants to shout at him, to tell him that he'll never have her baby. But that's the thing; Steve isn't a baby anymore, he's a man. So she nods her head, slowly. "I don't like you. I don't think I ever will. And if you hurt my son, I'll be the first to find you and make your life a living hell; don't doubt me." Then she turns away, and walks down the hall, passing the reception room and walking out the door. Tony will take care of her son; she knows that, somewhere deep down. But she can't face it today..and so she keeps walking.

Perhaps gods do answer prayers.


End file.
